
</-rrJ-tu^ (^Mn^OJ^ ^^vkrCLoiunn^CUin 










^m^x 




Glass. 
Book- 



? ■ ■;;, i^ 



/V 



fS 



187 



/ 



T H E 



ERSONAL lUmn OF THE CITIZEN 



THE 



«4i 




An Oration Delivered at Belmont, N. Y. 
July 4th; 1871, by 



PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 



ELMIRA, N. Y. : 

etjMira adverttser association printing house. 

1871. 



Va^ .\viy .\^A/, 



3 AS" 



THE PERSONAL iUi^UTS OF THE (JlTiZEN 



THE 



'/w^»»a/i|* ,- 




FjiLbovv CiTiziiNS : — IL is the ^lory oi' your 

laud that within its borders, from sea to sea, 

"rUoro clwolls uo oastlctl Ltfcl, 
Nor cibiiiod slave." 

lloro there is no pi'ince, but the citizen ; and 
there is no citizen who is not a prince. You 
ai-e the kings who reign in the empire of 
Jreedom. God grant that I may wisely coun- 
sel you, with what justice to men, with what 
obedience to God, with what faith in the 
eternal expediency of tbo Kight, you should 
temper your reign. 

This fortune is not yours alone. Every 
nation upon the earth beholds you, rejoices 
in you, and locks the anchor of its hope in 
the assured rock of your success. 

Like master-builders, then, whose work it 
is to guard and repair this edifice of freedom, 
shall we take ux^ the question which the hour 
suggests : — what are 

THE FOUNDATION STONES 'OF OUK LIBERTIES ? 

I will not carry the argument back to the 
reformation of Martin Luther, nor discuss 
the question whether civil liberty grows in- 
evitably from the root of liberty of con- 
science; whether king- crait and priest-craft, 
by any law of necessity, stand or fall togeth- 
er. Nor have we time to dwell upon the 
(piesliou, which is nearer to my purpose, of 
the ministry in the civil affairs of nations, of 

A FBEE BIBLE. 

History proves that somehow or other a 
free Bible has always been yeasty of revolu- 
tion — something so hot for despots that they 
have never deemed it a good thing to have in 
the house. Eenan says it is the German uni- 
versities that conquer in battle; but a free 
Bible is the architect of universities. The 
saying of Father Hyacinthe is more direct; 



that Germany is great, and strong and fiee, 
and her citizen soldiers win victories ou 
whatever field, not because they light with 
the needle gun, but because they fight ''with 
testaments in their hats." 

Not beginning, then, where the first tracks 
of liberty may be traced, it was God's fore- 
ordination that blew the wind which brought 
the Puritans to Tlymouth liock. Liborfy 
has never thriven beneath sunny skies. The 
place of 

HEU NATIVITY IS IN THE MOUNTAINS, 

and on sterile soil. The ark of human liber- 
ties was with that little band of pilgrims, and 
they were "cast upon the rocks, and suckled 
with the she wolf's teat," in order that the 
pioneers of freedom, shouldbe made tough — 
fit for their work. Ho, through the revolu- 
tion and in the war of the rebellion, this na- 
tion, still young,has been trained up for busi- 
ness—a liberty reared to last, even as the 
Goddess, in the old mythology, made her 
pupil immortal by feeding him with divine 
milk by day, and burying him in the fire at 
night. 

I need not argue to prove to you that New 
England character, like New England hills, is 
slow to rear and somewhat obdurate to stand; 
that in governmental affairs it loves the sad- 
dle, and is somewhat hard to be unhorsed ; 
that a north-east storm, in revolution, in 
religion or in politics, which blows from New 
England, is very much like a snow storm 
from the same direction— you get more than 
you want. Nor, I take it, will I need to 
prove by argument anywhere in this county, 
that a colonized Yankee clings to his early 
|fdith,just as a transported sea-dog hugs to 



his cake of ice. Llike a convinced Scotchman 
he is "of the same opinion still." 

And when, if ever, our ship of state, freight- 
ed with the world's liberties, shall drag its 
anchor across the continent, and lock its last 
tluke into the granite heart of New England, 
that will hold like the promise of God ! 

With this Now England fealty to freedom 
vied the other colonies ; and the fathers, like 
wise builders, dug deep for the hard-pan, and 
in the Declaration of Independence, laid the 
foundations of the Republic upon 

THE PEESONAL EIGHTS OF THECITIZliN. 

The law of progress, manifest in the physical 
world, is equally manifest in the social his- 
tory of the race. 

'Twas only the centuries, that had evolved 
those truths, so threadbare and seemingly so 
simple to us, that human governments are 
for the bouetit of the ruled, not of the rulers ; 
that they " derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed," and " are institu- 
ted to secure the rights of life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness" ; and that their founda- 
tions should be laid on such principles as 
' ' will effect the 

SAFETY AND HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPXiE. " 

Like the ten commandments, and the law of 
gravitation in Newton's day, these general, 
simple truths have been scoffed at, as "glit- 
tering generalities." But ideas, however 
nicknamed, which take hold of the consciences 
of the people, have always ruled, and will al- 
ways rule, the fortunes of men. It was an 
idea that led to the Reformation. It was the 
idea of state rights which led to the war of 
the rebellion. It was an idea that made a. 
teapot of Boston harbor. And Carlyle well 
says that in the first revolution the French 
nation guillotined a whole generation to make 
room for an idea ! 

The architects of the Republic sought to 
lay its foundation stones upon the sentiment 
of eternal justice in the human heart: come 
closer to the thought ; of personal justice, and 
from that, to rear the superstructure of hu- 
man liberty, by the plummet. They adopted 
the statesmanship of a humorous i^hilosopher : 
" Folks that work thorough are the ones that 
thrive. Build sure in the beginning, and then 
don't never touch the underpinning." 

In this way, the sentiment of justice in the 
human heart came to be the bed-rock of the 



Republic. And the human heart is a kingdom 
that cannot be moved ! 

It is only time, however, that sets the mor- 
tar of human wisdom, and all history has 
proved that 

ENDUEING GOVEENMEJiTS AEE NOT MADE ; 
THEY GEOW. 

The boahted constitution of England, never 
written, has grown up by kingly concessions 
from time to time, by precedents. So has 
our own government ; so has our constitu- 
tion grown, since, for instance, the time, 
when it was doubted, whether the govern- 
ment had power to coerce a rebel State, and 
grown, too, it must be conceded, for pride or 
shame, by construction, by precedent, almost 
out of recollection, to some people. So, too, 
has the constitution grown, by amendment. 
Thought a complete thing at first, it has been 
patched, by amendment, fifteen times ! 

There is something in Scripture, I believe, 
against putting a piece of now cloth into an 
old garment, lest the rent be made worse. 
But whether this work has been wise tailor- 
ing, or not, I guess nobody doubts, that 
either the 13th, 14th, or 15th patch, was a 
bigger thing than the original job. And the 
lime is hard by when we shall adopt the 
IGth amendment;-if the ladies can satisfy us, 
that a patch of calico won't tear a wool con- 
stitution. 

Fellow Citizens: It is matler for earnest 
congratulation, that these amendments are 
accepted, by all political parties in the conn- 
try. It is said that in Egvpt, the railroad 
engineers back up ind load tho tenders of 
their locomotives with the dry mummies of 
the catacombs tor fuel. So, from this time, 
will we, of all political parties, fallow citizens, 
make the dead and dry issues of the past give 
to our country only new speed of progress, 
and engage in generous and glorious rival- 
ries for freedom. 

It was the leaven of liberty, in the consti- 
tution, which has purged tho constitu- 
tion by a sort of self-purificalion. There 
is no partisan sentiment in the burning 
words : 

" At Ia--t ! at last ! Ob, Stars and Slrioes ! 
Touched in your birtn by freedom's flume, 
Yonr purifying lightning wipes, 
Out from our history, its shame !" 

The Constitution of" the Union, like the 
constitution of a child, has outgrown its 



wtinkae.ss. The tituuthy lia:; uiu out the 
June grass! 

lu govornmoutK, us in ovorything elso in 
u iture, it is tbo germ that grows. 

LET THAT GEEM BE FEEEDOM, 

and the overshadosviag tree of liberty, which 
shall come of it in the suns and storms of the 
centuries, shall shelter the millions of our 
people and drop its leaven, for the healing of 
the nations I Not only on its boughs shall 
hang bells, proclaiming liberty throughout the 
earth, but they shall be peopled, with hover- 
ing angels, coming nearer unto men, and 
its silver leaves shall shimmer with the dawn- 
ing of millennial light. 

Then tie your government to a still' stake 
and let it grow. Let it grow in the way 

THAT CHEEISnES THE CITIZEN, 

that gives him good wages, and a comfortable 
home ; that saves the homesteads of your 
public domain, and all your national wealth 
for him ; that reduces his taxes, educates his 
children, and makes his prosperity and the 
prosperity of the government indentical. 

See to it that your rulers understand that 
the true glory of a nation is only in 

TUE INTELLIGENCE, THE VIRTUE AND TUE HAP- 
PINESS OF ITS PEOPLE. 

And SCO to it thvt they hew to that line. 

State- Kovereignty is dear to us, only because 
we judge'it protects the rights of the people. 
It has been a grave political question — a dif- 
ficult question— and it is fit that I should say 
a doubtful question, about which parties dif- 
fer, whether the more recent growth of our 
government trenching somewhat, perhaps, 
upon our notions of state sovereignty, in the 
supposed interest of the liberties of the citi- 
zen, has been in all things a healthy growth. 
Look to it sharply, follow citizens, and if it is 
not, go to the woods and cut a straighter 
stake. Your decision will bo right. The, 
voice of the people is the voice of God. i 

Already have the people of all parties 
spoken, demanding that the newly made, citi- 
zens of the liepublic shall be left where they 
are ; and that no attempt be made to put 
chickens, that are hatched and have peeped, 
that have eaten some corn and angleworms, 
back into the shell 

Fellow citizens : Is it not the feeble ap- 
proach which the theory of our government 
makes, to God's even-handed justice, which 
has in our past history. 



COMMENDED US TO GOD's FAVOK 'i 

llis grand purposes in hiding this virgin 
continent for so many ages behind the seas, 
are being fast revealed in the evolving des- 
tiny of the GEEAT EEPUBLIC ! 

By sight, if not by faith, let us come to 

know, and give him the honor of the 

acknowledgement, that in our past, our 

present and our future, 

"Tlio Gotl of David siiil, 
Guides tlio pubblo at iiis will." 

I knew an atheist, of high intelligence, 

converted to implicit faith in God, by the 

inexorable logic of the events of the recent 

war No atter^tive ear, it seems to me, can 

have failed to hear, with the staggering 

blows the ua'.ion has often received, the 

"ring of God's anvil," tempering the hearts 

of this people to a higher faith, in 

THE EXPEDIENCY OF TUE r.IOnT. 

'Twas simple faith in the divine appoint- 
ment of our destiny, which has carried us 
through many a national crisis, when the 
hour was supreme. And I Leg you to re- 
member, and teach it to your children, that 
in the raggedest hour in all our history, when 
Governor Yates sent to President Lincoln a 
dispatch, which was only the nation's cry of 
despair, it was the faith of that martyred Seer 
of liberty, which held this faint and bleeding 
people manfully up to their desperate work, 
and which was uttered fitly for a joking 
prophet, in that memorable answer : 
"Hold on, Dick, and sco the Balvation of the Lord!" 

It is Holy Writ, which teaches, that human 
governments are of God. 'Tis simple atheism 
to assert that God takes no stock in the pros- 
perity and perpetuity of a government, whoso 
prerogatives are only used in guarding the 
personal rights of all men. It is simply 
saying that God takes no interest in the dis- 
pensation of God's justice, among men. 

Look now, fellow citizens, and see if a 
danger has ever threatened the perpetuity of 
the Union, which has not sprung, proxi- 
mately, or very closely, from some 

DEPIRTURB FEOM PERSONAL JUSTICE 

in the government of the country. We give 
all honor to the prophet statesman who laid 
upon this rock, of the personal rights of the 
citizen, the foundations of the Ilepublic ; 
Wisely as they knew, tbey builded ; they 
builded, even better,, than they knew.- Never- 
theless, they departed at the beginning, from 



6 



the principles of the Declaration. Itejecting 
the divine right of Kings, they did not com- 
prehend in thtir fall inviolability, the divine 
rights of the people. In the recognition of 
f^lavory, they yoked together in the Constitu- 
tion, antagonistic principles, counter-forces 
that v.'ould not pnil together.. They saw it 
themselves; so history records; but they 
hoped for the gradual extirpation of slavery. 
Bat then, as ever, in compromises between 
the right and the wrong, the Devil got the 
best of it. While they slept in security, he 



with its head oil, better than with it on. Nor 
is it possible, with our churches, and press 
and schools, that the nation shall perish bo- 
cause the people shall decay ; nor that the 
people themselves shall ever wish to over- 
throw a government, administered only for 
the protection of the rights of the people; 
nor that belonging, as every citizen doeSj to 
the reigning family, he shall over wish to ab- 
dicate his throne. If, then, this nation is to 
peri-sh, it must perish in some way 

WITHOUT PEECEDENT IN HISTOEY, 



hovered over the South, sowing, not tares, and which human wisdom cannot predict. 



but cotton seed. 

Even the Goddess of Liberty, whom thay had 
clothed in garments that were all wool, and 
made, not a divinity at every fireside, 'but 
unwisely set only on the domes of great cdi- 
tices, and left out in the wet, an "unprotect- 
ed female ;" he, dressed up in calico, and 
then audaciously sat up with her ! 

The sequel proved that it is^ is true for 
Goddesses, as for other people, that "he that 
sups with the devil, needs to have li long 
spoon." 

Fellow citizens : Has any one of us faith 
enough and grasp enough, to take in the 
grand 

DESTINY OF THIS EMPIKE OF FliEEDOM ? 

All thoughtful men have studied much up- 
on the decay of empire. Time fails me, but 
it is demonstrable, that our government, 
bounded by the seas, can never perish by 
foreign conquest. It can not be divided, 
while the late effort to divide it, remains in 
the memory of men, and because we are now 
made a homogeneous people, with no North, 



Fellow citizens : Does not this day bring 
back to you, the yet unforgotten faces of the 
canonized dead? IIow, only yesterday, with 
tender tears and lusty prayers, did you follow 
the bloody marches of the 23d, L'7th, Glth, 
G7th, 85th, 93d, ISGth, 141st, IS'Jth N. Y. In- 
fantry, of the 1st Dragoons, the 5th Cavalry, 
the Ira Harris Light Calvary, and watch the 
smoke of the siege which hid from sight your 
loved ones in the 1th and 13th Heavy Artil- 
lery ? Alas I how many of these brave boys 
do not yet return, though the cheeks of wait- 
ing children still press the window pane I — 
Where is the heart stout enough to call the 
muster-roll ? 

Not for military glory, but because thoy 
loved liberty and the Union; did they go to 
gather into their generous bosoms, the bul- 
lets of our enemies ! 

''On field and redoubt, 

They were mustered out, 

And musterod into eternal lU'c !" 

How many an acre of our wide domain is 
made to-day bj' their consecrated ashes, the 
God's-acre of liberty ! And how does the si- 
uo South, no East, no V/est. A government lent eloquence of their tongues, still in 
where all religions are free, cannot laerish by j death, plead with us to guard well the liber- 
a religious war. It can not perish by milita-ities they have saved; — to make this Union a 
ry usurpation; because, happen what will to Union of hearts as well as of hands, by ma- 
the federal government, anarchy, the only Iking 



stepping stone to the usurper, can never fol- 
low; as every one of the thirty-seven separate 
and independent states, would still stand quiet 
and secure — a tub on its own bottom. Our 
government does not, like every republic 



SECUEITY FOE THE FUTUKE OUR ONLY EEVENGE 
FOE THE PAST — 

How, upon every hill and in every valley of 
Allegany county, stand the monuments of 
what our liberties have cost, in the ruins of 



which has perished in history, carry all its desolated homes I No human hand can build 
eggs in one basket, the capital, -which can them anew ; but you can grace them, fellow- 
auy day, be broken by a mob. Indeed, the j citizens, with the ivy of a gratitude forever 
Union is so strong and self- regulating, that! gree^. ! How many a pale faced widow can 
there is always one political party, the oppo- you count among you lot- whom God has no 



sition, which believes that, like a turtle, it 
would navigate, till the next election at least. 



mercy, which she covets so much, as the 
mercy he denies her — the liberty to sleep be- 



side her unshrouded lovod and lost, in some 
unmarked grave in the Peninsula, the valley 
of the Shenandoah, on the march to the sea, 
at Plymouth, Bull llun, Seven Pines, Mal- 
vern Hill, Chancellorsville, llesacca, Peach 
Tree Creek, Suffolk, the Y\'^ilderncss, Gold 
Harbor, Winchester, Cedar Creek, or some 
other battle field of the war, or, Ola I God ! at 
Andersonville ! 

Hope springs eternal, in all human hearts, 
but hers: 

" Her sowl shall weep, 
While memory lives, 
From ■wounds that siuk so deep, 
No human hand relieves !' 

There can be no legislation that, for her 
can "lighten the taxes," until, by the merci- 
ful hand of death she, too, is mustered out ; 
and to her, also, thank God, at last, at last, 
this cruel war is over ! 

I recall a gifted, beautiful and loving wife, 
of a private of one of the regiments I have 
named, who was borne down with loneliness 
and anxiety until, at last, "the bowl was 
broken at the cistern, and the pitcher broken 
at the fountain." I have read the letter, 
which she wrote to her husband, tlie day he- 
fore she died, telling him to keep his courage 
up, that the baby and she were well. Was 
not her soul shriven of the lie, as she wended 
her swift way to the presence of God ; a 
pure spirit, self-robed for the altar of hor 
country ! 

Oh ! may God give our country some his- 
torian, who shall fitly record the truth, that 
the LOYAL WOMEN of the country, who spent 
their days in cheering men to the front, and 
their nights in tears over their desolated 
homes, paid more than hale of what it cost 
to save the Union. 

Mr, President and Mr. Marshal* : I 

would fain lay cpon your brows a chaplet of 

laurels ; but as I look upon your eloquent 

scars, and that "honorable sleeve, "my tongue 

*Gen. Mctfott was President, and Gen. Scott Marsh' 
al of the day. 



falters. In those swift hours of our national 
life, atPortRepubl'c and Peach Tree Creek,as 
on half a dozen other fields, you mixed with 
the red wise of the heart, the crimson mor- 
tar, with which the stones of history were laid ! 
You and such as you, as well as the glorious 
dead, are ours. You loved yourselves last, 
and we have entered into your labors. A 
grateful nation wears you in her heart of 
hearts. Wear your honors proudly and worth- 
ily the great deeds you have wrought. 

Soldiers ! Kepresented only by a substitute 
in the armies of Freedom, I am not worthy 
to unloose the latchet of your shoe. The 
place you sought was not at homo, nor in the 
commissary department, nor in the quarter- 
master's department, but at the front in the 
bullet department. Y'ou bore the flag, al- 
ways without dishonor, into the very jaws of 
hell ! You covered that flag all over with 
glory ; and in the name of the Republic I 
proclaim to you, the glory of that liag is 
yours. And when you pass away you shall 
take your i^laces among the heroes of all time, 
conscious that through your labors we have 
entered upon the golden age of the Kepublic 
— become a redeemed and glorious Young 
America. 

Fellow-Citizens: — The flinty valor which 
has thus brought us a fruitful victory and a last- 
ing peace because born of a libertywhich cher- 
ishes the citizen — has only set the Union back 
upon the rails of God's decrees. As this land, 
since it came from the hands of its architect, 
has been saved, free from the curse of king- 
craft, dedicated to virgin freedom ; so, from 
the temple, the Divinity shall not depart I 
The eternal song of liberiy is in the voice of 
its waterfalls and the roar of its pines ! God 
has not reared its craggy mountains as great 
altars of unhewn stones to Freedom, to stand 
priestless before the Universe ; nor has ho 
scooped out the valley of the Mississippi, to 
be "the grave of liberty." 



